There are a number of things that have to be done to have a successful e-commerce site. You have to worry about conversion rate and make sure that your traffic is always growing. It’s a constant battle to make sure that all the gears are moving the way they should so you can make money.
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It’s difficult to get everything right with an e-commerce site and have success but when you add in some common mistakes then it becomes even more difficult. Success is never guaranteed with an online store and a lot can go wrong. This is why it’s so important to make sure that you are not making those common mistakes so that you have a chance to succeed.
In this article, we will go over some of those mistakes so you can avoid making them and set yourself up for success.
1. Your Website is Hard to Navigate
To make sure that your customers are able to get to the checkout stage and make a purchase, your website has to be well designed. It should be easy to use and navigate. People who shop online can be fickle since there are many options to shop at other sites. This means that at the first sign of resistance they will usually click back to the search results and continue on with their search for a product.
This is one of the things that needs to be avoided at all costs. You need to make sure that the navigation is clear and that the visitor to your site always knows what the next thing to do is. Take a look at a review of the best website builders in Australia and find one that fits your needs and budget. Then watch some tutorials on how to design a website that is easy to navigate.
It may seem obvious, but people who are not professional web designers end up having a hard time creating a site that is easy to navigate. The key is to make sure that there are plenty of buttons so it is clear what you expect the visitor to the site to do next. It could be a button to add the product to a shopping cart or to direct them right to the checkout page so they can pay.
2. You Don’t Have a Blog
Getting free traffic to your website is going to be crucial since you will otherwise be spending money to bring the right traffic ordinarily. This means that you have to work on a blog that uses SEO to get your target market to visit the site.
The idea is that when you create content that is based on a topic that people are actively searching for, then your site will come up in the top results of the search. The key to this is to build some authority with social media, and link building to make sure that Google trusts your site.
When you build a blog with helpful and informative content then you will rank highly and be able to build a good following from the visitors that can be turned into customers. It will take some time and quite a bit of content but once it’s done it’s sort of like a machine that keeps bringing traffic in with almost no effort.
3. You Didn’t Build an Email List
When you have somebody come to your site and make a purchase it is really important to stay in contact with that person afterward. If you don’t build an email list then you are really leaving money on the table since a person that signs up wants to be marketed to so they can stay updated about your products.
When you have their email you can offer them coupon codes for discounts later on that they will appreciate. This will help you get through slow periods since you have a motivated list of people who like your products and would like to buy again regularly.
The key to remember is to not market too aggressively. Although people do want to know about a sale, promotion, or when there are new products added to the store, they don’t want to feel that they are only a customer who is always ready to buy.
Make sure to send them emails with helpful information and only ones for promotion rarely. They will appreciate the content that gives them ideas on how to care for the product, or answers any questions that they had about it.
Then, after four or five emails you can send them one that promotes a sale.
4. Your Customer Service is Poor
The idea of having an e-commerce store is that you want to make sure that people see your store as a place that they trust and will want to shop at repeatedly. This all hinges on how they feel treated as a customer.
It’s important to treat customer service seriously and not as an afterthought after a purchase is made. After the purchase, try to follow up with the customer to ask them if they are happy with the purchase and if they need anything else. This shows them that you care about their experience.
There should be a clear return policy somewhere on the site so that people know what will happen if they receive the wrong order or if the product is defective. This way they are also likely to place an order if they understand what happens in the event of a problem.
The return process should be as smooth as possible for the customer with the cost and burden placed on you and your store. Send them a return slip that can be printed and placed on the box for them to send it back without doing much work.
This will ensure that they will be happy to do business with you again in the future since they will assume that accidents happen but you were there to help them make the situation right.